embracing joy, releasing excess

Winter in Review

Finally uploaded a few pictures from the camera today. It has been a LOOOOONG time since I updated our family blog, so I decided just to start where my pictures started, Fall/Winter 2013/14. This was a good reminder for me of two things : 1. Take more pictures with the camera! I think I do mostly phone pics these days. 2. Be more consistent with the blog. It is a really nice memory keeper and way to share with friends and family. Here are some highlights of our fall and winter:

M tries baby food. This kid loves to eat.

Happy Halloween from Rapunzel and Iron Man.

I finally had surgery to remove my gangilion cyst…over Thanksgiving. N did a great job preparing Thanksgiving dinner. With a new baby, selling a house, and buying a house, we had a lot to be thankful for this year!

First snow! If only they knew how much we’d end up with this winter.

Ugly sweater party. Unstoppable!

One of my favorite memories this year, the Huckleberry Railroad Christmas train. My grandfather sent us some money for the great grandchildren so we decided to make a memory instead of buying more things, a habit we are trying to make a part of our lives. It was a magical day. Thanks, Pepere Ed!

Christmas! We were down to bare bones around the house with the move less than two weeks away. N went out of his way to make it special for the kids by asking the “elves” to decorate with lights inside since we couldn’t outside. He is such a great dad, even going through moving boxes Christmas eve to find the lights. We also enjoyed Christmas eve service at our church, a delicious breakfast and a day of snuggling in our jammies.

M’s favorite present.

J and “Sarah”. It was the year of the horse around here. This is an everyday outfit for her, by the way.

M turns 6 months. Happiest. Baby.Ever.

Move to the new house. We are LOVING living out in the “country”. We are just a few miles from town, but it seems very private and serene. If only we could have predicted the snow we would end up getting. We certainly got our exercise shoveling the first weekend here, with over a foot of snow. Little did we know we would end up with over 90 inches of snow for the winter, almost breaking the record set in the late 1800s. Below you can see our back yard, the chicken coop, our view to the west, and, of course, SNOW.

Daddy Daughter Dance.

N took J to the Butterfly Ball. We are trying to “date” the kids monthly so we get some one on one time.

Okay, that’s about it for now. Hopefully the next catch up won’t be 6 months of events!!